1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to transcoding or adapting information for use by a constrained presentation engine in a client device operating in an information distribution system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Interactive television services are increasingly becoming available on many cable and satellite distribution networks. In such networks, television programming and other multimedia content is delivered to and processed by a set top box located at a subscriber's premises. In addition to conventional television programming, interactive services are also being made available to network subscribers. Such services may include the delivery of applications such as games, weather, email, tickers, TV chat and walled garden web type content.
In some interactive networks, a presentation engine resides on a set top box that can be used by various interactive applications or services to provide a user interface and to provide a user with requested information. In some cases, a presentation engine handles HTML-based interactive content that is to be displayed on a TV set. A Presentation Engine (PE) is, in some embodiments, similar to a Web browser in that it provides support for creating and using the Web's standardized mark-up and scripting languages, such as Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) and ECMAScript. Unfortunately, the implementation of a presentation engine on a set top box requires a relatively large amount of computing resources, including memory and processing cycles.